How do you numb the pain?

Shopping, Eating, Scrolling, Drinking …

I am guilty of a Target run as my therapy/numbing mechanism. There are various ways we all numb the pain, but I want to encourage you not to let that be your “go to” response. Pain, Trauma, Stress and Experiences are there to shape you and mold you; however, we rarely reach that mold because we numb instead of acknowledging.

Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. said in his book “The Body Keeps Score”

“While numbing (or compensatory sensation seeking) may make life tolerable, the price you pay is that you lose awareness of what is going on inside your body and, with that, the sense of being fully, sensually alive.”

Go back, & Read that again …

"the price you pay is that you lose awareness of what is going on inside your body and, with that, the sense of being fully, sensually alive."

What we may use to numb the pain of an unfortunate event or unforeseen circumstance actually affects much more than we understand. We can’t numb pain without affecting our bodies ability to experience joy . When my mind, will or emotions try to warn me or bring me into a space to process an event and I ignore that I give myself mixed signals. Lets look at an example:

If an electrician came and cut out the power in your whole house so that he could do work on something in the bedroom could you then cut the light switch on in the kitchen? No. He had to cut all the switches off even though there is nothing wrong in the kitchen. This is what happens when we numb the pain.

You may be numbing the pain for one event (the bedroom) but it affects your ability to experience what is still good (the kitchen).

It is the same with your bodies!

Reflect on your ability to feel complete joy. Do you experience that? What have you consistently been running to in order to numb the pain and is that in turn affecting your ability to experience the fullness of joy?